"cut someone off at the knees" meaning in English

See cut someone off at the knees in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: cuts someone off at the knees [present, singular, third-person], cutting someone off at the knees [participle, present], cut someone off at the knees [participle, past], cut someone off at the knees [past], cut someone off at their knees [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-verb|cut<,,cut> someone off at the knees}} cut someone off at the knees (third-person singular simple present cuts someone off at the knees, present participle cutting someone off at the knees, simple past and past participle cut someone off at the knees)
  1. To abruptly thwart someone, shut them down, or put them in their place.
    Sense id: en-cut_someone_off_at_the_knees-en-verb-hPjMAz~Z Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "cuts someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cutting someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cut someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cut someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cut someone off at their knees",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "cut<,,cut> someone off at the knees"
      },
      "expansion": "cut someone off at the knees (third-person singular simple present cuts someone off at the knees, present participle cutting someone off at the knees, simple past and past participle cut someone off at the knees)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To abruptly thwart someone, shut them down, or put them in their place."
      ],
      "id": "en-cut_someone_off_at_the_knees-en-verb-hPjMAz~Z",
      "links": [
        [
          "abrupt",
          "abrupt"
        ],
        [
          "thwart",
          "thwart"
        ],
        [
          "shut them down",
          "shut down"
        ],
        [
          "put them in their place",
          "put someone in their place"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "cut someone off at the knees"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "cuts someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cutting someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cut someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cut someone off at the knees",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "cut someone off at their knees",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "cut<,,cut> someone off at the knees"
      },
      "expansion": "cut someone off at the knees (third-person singular simple present cuts someone off at the knees, present participle cutting someone off at the knees, simple past and past participle cut someone off at the knees)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To abruptly thwart someone, shut them down, or put them in their place."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "abrupt",
          "abrupt"
        ],
        [
          "thwart",
          "thwart"
        ],
        [
          "shut them down",
          "shut down"
        ],
        [
          "put them in their place",
          "put someone in their place"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "cut someone off at the knees"
}

Download raw JSONL data for cut someone off at the knees meaning in English (1.2kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-05-27 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (a4e883e and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.